X Found To Have Monetized Racist And Antisemitic Hashtags
Social media platform X, formerly Twitter, has been running ads on the search results for least 20 racist and antisemitic hashtags, according to a review by NBC News.
The ad placements allowed X to monetize the hateful content more than 18 months after Elon Musk said that he would demonetize such posts on the platform.
X Runs Racist Ads
NBC News found the advertisements by searching several hashtags used to promote racism and antisemitism and by searching X accounts known for racial or religious hatred.
The hashtags found varied from #whitepride and #unitethewhite to coded words such as #groyper, which is a movement of online white nationalists, among others.
According to NBC, it’s unclear to what extent people at X knew that the company was monetizing the extremist hashtags.
After NBC sought comment from X on the findings, Musk’s platform appeared to have taken action against at least five of the 20 hashtags that previously had ads.
The other 15, including #whitepower, remained searchable.
POCIT also checked today, and hashtags such as #whitepride and #unitethewhite are still on the platform. However, no ads are among them.
The 20 monetized extremist hashtags on X included six associated with explicit white supremacy, eight promoting antisemitism, and six related to anti-immigrant conspiracy theories.
Gearset, Shopify, and MS were among the X advertisers whose ads ran between the search results for racist and antisemitic hashtags; however, the three companies did not respond to requests for comments.
Elon Musk’s X Controversy
During Elon Musk’s tenure, X’s content moderation policies have significantly changed, often rolling back previously stricter measures.
This approach has led to the loss of major advertisers, with 74 out of the top 100 US advertisers from October 2022 no longer spending on the platform by May 2023, according to Sensor Tower.
Some advertisers, like Disney and Hyundai, paused their spending due to concerns over antisemitism and hate speech on X, further highlighted by Musk’s controversial comments and actions.
In a statement to NBC News, X did not dispute the findings but said the company “had already taken action on a number of these terms and will continue to expand our approach as necessary.”
“X has clear rules in place relating to violent and hateful speech, and robust protections in place for advertisers,” X said in the emailed statement.
“One of our enforcement tools is to limit the reach of posts, which is not reflected in this research.”
